Richard Zeitlin, 63, the director of the Wisconsin Veterans Museum since 1982, dies of cancer.

12.4 Thursday

Madison police arrest Dustin Dunlavy, 28, of Madison and tentatively charge him with battery and disorderly conduct. Dunlavy allegedly beat fellow bicyclist Colin O'Brien on Nov. 26, after O'Brien said Dunlavy shouldn't be cycling at night without a light. O'Brien, 51, who owns Cronometro on Willy Street, helped police find Dunlavy by giving a detailed description of the expensive bike he was riding.

12.5 Friday

Sun Prairie Police Chief Frank Sleeter abruptly retires after 17 years on the job. Sleeter had recently objected to the cutting of two police positions in the city's 2009 budget.

A bomb threat shuts down Sun Prairie High School for the day.

12.6 Saturday

A bus carrying 17 UW students on a school trip collides with a car on a suburban Chicago expressway. The driver of the car is killed; the UW students are not seriously harmed.

Carroll Metzner, 89, dies in Middleton. Metzner was a longtime Madison attorney who got a law passed in 1957 that temporarily blocked construction of Monona Terrace.

12.8 Monday

Adam Peterson, 20, pleads guilty to first-degree intentional homicide charges in the murder of Joel Marino, 31. Peterson, a former UW student, says he went to Marino's south-side home in January intending to rob him, but ended up killing him instead. Peterson receives a mandatory sentence of life in prison; a decision on whether he will ever be eligible for release is pending.

The first major storm of the season dumps 6.5 inches of snow on Dane County.

Eduardo Cademartori, 27, of Florida, dies from injuries he received in a beating downtown. Police have arrested Roynell Fuller, 19, and Ross Spang, 22. They say the two men fought with Cademartori at Crave Restaurant & Lounge on West Gorham Street, before confronting him later outside. Cademartori, a race car mechanic, was in town to train with his Level 5 Motorsports Racing teammates. It is the 10th homicide in Madison this year, evidently an all-time record.

12.9 Tuesday

Fitchburg Mayor Tom Clauder announces he will not seek re-election this spring.

Pablo Torre, 43, is charged with stealing $29,000 in checks from Second Harvest Food Bank of Southern Wisconsin, where he worked. He never cashed the checks.

12.10 Wednesday

Ernesto Benitez Hernandez, 38, charged with murdering a 13-month-old infant in Madison in 1999, appears in Dane County court after being extradited from Mexico. His alleged victim, Maria Fernanda Hernandez, died from blunt-force injuries to the head.